Dublin Leading the Way to Improve Energy Efficiency in California
Dublin Mayor Tim Sbranti recently signed a letter of support to join Pleasanton and Stockton in a pilot program that will increase energy efficiency and reduce waste for 500+ older homes. The Davis Energy Group is coordinating the Large Scale Energy Retrofit Program with the goal of designing cost-saving energy reduction retrofit strategies for residential homeowners through buying products in bulk.
This program seeks to provide residential homeowners with the same energy saving opportunities that commercial building owners throughout California have benefitted from for years. Most of the $4.6M pilot program costs will be borne by the U.S. Department of Energy, PG&E, and homeowners that choose to participate in the pilot program. The City of Dublin will not have any costs associated with this pilot program.
The stakes for the pilot program are high. A successful pilot should have a statewide ripple effect that will yield enormous benefits:
- Less energy – 7.8% reduction in residential energy consumption.
- Fewer rolling blackouts – 10.7% reduction in peak demand usage.
- Reduced carbon footprint – annual CO2 emissions reduced by 2.4M metric tons.
Dublin’s commitment to this pilot program will help to unlock enormous energy savings throughout the State of California. Please click here for more examples of Dublin’s commitment to sustainability.
12:16 PM on June 26th, 2009
A move in the right direction. I should start with Residential. Like Sonata where the builder incorporates solar panels into each new home, all builders in Dublin should be require to do the same. If each household could supplement a percentage of their energy use with solar it will make a huge dent in the move towards efficiency. I was so dissappointed with Braddock & Logan and Discovery Homes did not incorporate solar into their new homes. The residential solar technology is there and it is not as expensive to incorporate it when newly built compared to the high cost of retrofitting a home that was built without one.
The City should develop an ordinanc to require solar system be installed into all new residential projects, like Wallis Ranch, Arroyo Vista, Camp Parks etc…
7:00 PM on June 26th, 2009
Interesting. I am very pro-solar energy, but am not a huge fan of any subsidies coming from the government at this point…